| Take a look at the hits from today's Inside Cryptocurrency newsletter: - A recent forum that gathered U.S. presidential candidates to discuss crypto-related issues,
- China's new initiative to verify citizens' identities through blockchain,
- FIFA's upcoming 100-piece NFT collection, and more.
Enjoy your reading! Doğa
p/dogayurduneri | |
| 1 | | Stand With Crypto, a nonprofit campaign launched by Coinbase for crypto advocacy, has recently gathered several candidates for the 2024 U.S. presidential election through a forum in New Hampshire to discuss crypto-related issues. Republican candidates Asa Hutchinson and Vivek Ramaswamy and Democratic candidate Dean Phillips appeared at the event in person. More: - Speaking at the forum, Ramaswamy said the U.S. government's sanctions on the controversial coin-mixing service Tornado Cash are illegal and unconstitutional since they penalize an entire protocol or an entire way of doing business.
- The Republican candidate pointed out that governmental agencies should go after individual bad actors instead.
- During his speech, Phillips stated that he would consider taking action about a crypto market structure bill, which was advanced by the House Financial Services Committee last summer.
- Phillips added that he liked the privacy elements of crypto, but they should not come at a cost and should not be used for malevolent purposes.
- On the other hand, Hutchinson said crypto is here to stay, and he wants to make sure that the crypto industry improves in the U.S. under his administration as the country leads the market.
- The Republican candidate also underlined that rule clarification, continued consumer confidence, the ability to code, and affordable energy are needed to make the industry improve.
- On the other hand, crypto has become an important material for election campaigns in the U.S. over the last several years due to its rising popularity and the lack of a regulatory framework for the market in the country.
Zoom Out: - Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange, launched Stand With Crypto in August with several other industry members to advance pro-crypto policies.
- Users can easily reach out to policymakers and learn about politician's views toward crypto through the group's website, and the organization plans to use donations to grow its site's functions to influence crypto policies.
- The group recently announced that it reached participation from over 100,000 people and raised $2M from 80,000 people since its launch, with half of the funding coming from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.
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| 2 | | 
What the numbers say: A recent report from Web3 data platform DappRadar has revealed that the global NFT market reached $994M in trading volume in November, maintaining an upward trend for the last two consecutive months. The figure represents a 125% increase from the trading volume in October. It also marked the first time the volumes approached the $1B mark this much in the last seven months. The NFT sales count worldwide also experienced a slight surge during the last month, reaching 3.67 million. Relevance: On the other hand, the upward trend seen in October and November has reversed a market downturn that continued for the previous four months in a row. From June to September, the NFT industry saw a consistent decline in trading volumes as the figure retreated to as low as $300M. During the market downturn, the floor prices of many high-profile NFT collections, including Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Azuki, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and Pudgy Penguins, experienced a strong decline, disappointing their investors. The average sale prices and the overall sales volume also reacted to the trend with a decrease. Brands that should care: The downturn trend in the industry has further affected NFT firms negatively. Over the last several months alone, many NFT-related companies, including Yuga Labs, DapperLabs, OpenSea, Magic Eden, Candy, Metaplex, Autograph, and SuperRare, had to conduct mass layoffs, reducing their headcount. | | | |
| 3 | | Seychelles-based crypto exchange KuCoin has agreed to halt offering its services in the U.S. state of New York as part of a settlement deal with the office of New York Attorney General (AG) Letitia James. The firm will also pay a $22M fine to settle the charges in a lawsuit filed by the office against it. More: - In March, the state's AG sued KuCoin, accusing it of operating in New York without registering with the state regulators.
- The $22M fine will include a $5.3M payment to the state and a $16.7M refund in crypto to 177,800 investors residing in New York.
- In an official statement, Letitia James said crypto companies should understand that they must follow the same rules as other financial institutions.
- James' office has been famous for its strict approach toward the crypto industry and also previously filed lawsuits against several other crypto platforms, including CoinEx, Genesis Global, and Gemini.
Zoom Out: - On the other hand, the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), the state's financial regulator, has issued a license dubbed BitLicense for eight years to register crypto firms and let a company run virtual currency activities under regulations.
- The license has been criticized many times over the years for restrictive measures, long wait times, and high compliance costs.
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| 4 | | South Korea's Financial Services Commission (FSC), the country's financial market regulator, has proposed a new set of rules to better protect customers of virtual asset service providers. The new regulations under the Virtual Asset User Protection Act will be open for public consultation until Jan. 22 and come into effect on July 19, 2024. More: - The regulations provide statutory grounds for sanctions, such as criminal penalties and fines, to punish unfair trading activities involving virtual assets.
- The rules also require virtual asset service providers to monitor abnormal transactions and report suspicious trading activities to the FSC.
- Under the proposed regulations, crypto service providers will have to pay fees to their customers for using their deposits.
- Besides, the financial institutions, including banks, will be tasked with investing the customer deposits in safe assets like government bonds when virtual asset service providers store customer assets in them.
- The new rules also force crypto exchanges to store 80% or more of customer deposits in cold wallets, which store the crypto assets offline and are less vulnerable to hacks, marking an increase from the previous 70% requirement.
- The proposal further necessitates service providers to have liability insurance or set aside reserves to cover a significant portion of customer assets stored in hot wallets in case of cybersecurity incidents like hacks and computer failures.
- The upcoming regulations will not apply to NFTs, the central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and electronic bonds.
Zoom Out: - South Korea's National Assembly passed the Virtual Asset User Protection Act in June this year to better protect crypto investors.
- The legislation has authorized the FSC and the Bank of Korea, the country's central bank, to supervise the crypto service providers and virtual asset custodians and to enforce penalties in case of a potential violation.
- Since then, the FSC added some requirements to the act, including mandating domestic companies to report their virtual assets in their financial statements and forcing local crypto exchanges to implement new reserve rules.
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| 5 | | Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN), a Chinese blockchain initiative, has announced that China will launch a new service dubbed RealDID to verify its citizens' real-name identities. The service will be materialized under the leadership of the country's Ministry of Public Security. More: - RealDID will have multiple use cases, including personal real name confirmation, encrypted protection of personal data, certification, private logins, verification of business identities, and information vouchers on personal identity.
- The project will also allow citizens to register and log in to websites anonymously, ensuring that business data and transactions remain separate from personal information.
- Chinese customers will only need to use their decentralized identity (DID) addresses and private keys to access the online portals.
- BSN said the initiative will mark the world's first national-level decentralized real-name identity system.
- Currently, 1.4 billion people reside in China.
Zoom Out: - BSN China is operated by China's National Information Center in collaboration with the country's big tech companies, such as China Mobile and China UnionPay.
- The entity's international operations are managed independently by BSN Global.
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| 6 | | Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the international governing body of soccer competitions, has announced that it will launch a new NFT collection in honor of the Club World Cup 2023 tournament set to kick off today in Saudi Arabia. The 100-piece collection will give the holders the chance to secure tickets to the final game of the FIFA World Cup 2026. More: - FIFA will release the collection in collaboration with the blockchain firm Modex.
- The NFTs will be officially put up for sale on the association's digital collectible platform, FIFA+ Collect, on Dec. 15.
- Separately, FIFA will also issue an additional set of 900 NFTs on the Polygon blockchain network and release them on the popular NFT marketplace OpenSea.
- The 900-piece collection will feature digital versions of the memorable moments from the FIFA Club World Cup 2023.
- The association pointed out that its future digital collectibles will also be minted on Polygon, marking a turning point from the previous Algorand-based FIFA NFTs.
- Modex will take over strategic management of FIFA+ Collect.
Zoom Out: - FIFA launched FIFA+ Collect powered by the Algorand blockchain in September 2022.
- The platform has facilitated 11 NFT drops and reached $2.4M in trading volume across primary and secondary NFT marketplaces since its launch.
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| 7 | | Quick Hits: - Want to master Kubernetes? The Kubernetes Cookbook is a must-have guide to discover guidance on cloud architecture analytics, optimization, governance, and more.*
- Seychelles-based crypto exchange Bitget has made a multi-million-dollar investment in the Layer-2 blockchain network Morph.
- A recent analysis from Fortune Business Insights has forecasted that the value of the blockchain gaming market in North America will reach $600B by 2030.
- The U.K.'s public spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, has criticized the country's financial market regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), for remaining slow to take enforcement actions against crypto firms.
- Bestselling book on alternative investing offers the first chapter free for a limited time. "Money Shackles" innovates the way you think about money.*
*This is a sponsored post. | | | |
 | Staff Writer | | Doga is a tech and science editor who has been writing news for nearly 10 years. She worked for leading tech platforms and mainstrem media channels as an editor and presenter throughout his career. Then, she carried her know-how to more than one platform. She is a part-time cat lover and binge-watcher, and also fond of science, space, and emerging tech. She always has a story to tell. She is a bit addict to the laughter and -unfortunately- the '90s culture. | | This newsletter was edited by Aaron Crutchfield | |
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